How to Get to Heaven From Belfast review: A must-watch for Derry Girls fans
If you've lamented the absence of our dear Derry Girls from TV, Lisa McGee has a new Netflix series for you that's (sort of) grown up and just as gloriously chaotic.
Set across Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and beyond, How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is the writer/creator's new dark comedy series, and her latest mystery after the 2020 psychological thriller The Deceived. Playful, strange, and surreal, the series, like its complex characters, refuses to be put into any kind of box (not even a sparkly one with a combination lock).
Not only celebrated for her portrayal of Northern Irish women, McGee is in a league of her own when writing about female friendship, whether in adolescence or adulthood: the flabbergasted silliness, the brutal honesty, the fierce loyalty. At the heart of How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is a group of childhood friends who've grown somewhat apart in their late 30s, no small thanks to a terrible secret that bonds them forever. It's here we're gifted a divine trio of comedy excellence — Roisin Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan, and Caoilfhionn Dunne — and enough twists and turns to flip a Land Rover Discovery.
How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is proper mystery craic
Like many mystery writers, McGee begins How to Get to Heaven From Belfast with the tragic death of an enigmatic woman, whose high school friends are summoned back for her wake to the fictional village of Knockdara in County Donegal, Ireland (the same setting as McGee's The Deceived; the show is actually filmed in Carnlough, Northern Ireland). Knockdara has one hotel (with many, many theme nights), one taxi, one Garda station, and regular traffic jams caused by cows.
Several mysteries fight for the front seat at once. What happened that night in the woods? What happened to Greta (Natasha O'Keeffe) 20 years later? And what isn't her strangely synchronised family telling us? While this mystery series is anchored in the "dead girl" trope, with homecoming anxiety, hot cops, investigative journalists, and small town secrets aplenty, McGee, along with director Michael Lennox, subverts these elements and puts her own stamp on the genre through a razor-sharp script, wild production design, a nostalgic '00s soundtrack, and golden casting.
Something about Greta's "accidental" death doesn't sit right with Saoirse (Gallagher), a crime show writer drawn to sinister plots who finds herself visited by ghosts, even at the BAFTAs. Less enthusiastic to join Saoirse's amateur sleuthing are Robyn (Keenan), a glam, no-nonsense mother of three, and Dara (Dunne), a pious lesbian who cares for her less-than-appreciative mother. They're an unlikely investigative force by their own measure: "We're not the fuckin' A-Team, Saoirse!" Robyn declares.
Not one of these three will admit it aloud to each other, but they're craving hijinks, so when mysterious red letters turn up, they're visibly loath to return the site of their terrible secret, while covertly enjoying seeing their daily lives in the rearview. Here, their story transcends time, reconnecting them with their teen selves, diaries, matching tattoos, and a long-buried secret.
How to Get to Heaven From Belfast's cast is divine
As far as leading trios go, Gallagher, Keenan, and Dunne are a heaven-sent mismatch, as thrown together as childhood friends can be. Whether dealing with their own anxieties or spitting home truths at each other in a creepy, dilapidated caretaker's cottage, a glamorous Portuguese resort, or in Robyn's flimsily held-together Land Rover, the trio's lived-in connection is the series' remarkable strength.
A simmering pot of rage, Keenan's Robyn is a dastardly scene-stealer, throwing down formidable moments of parenting on her same-aged friends so fierce you feel like going to your own room. Gallagher's jaded, flustered Saoirse channels her life events into her show Murder Code while gritting her teeth through meetings with her diva lead actor (Leila Farzad) and near-constant praise for Jesse Armstrong. And Dara, the moral compass of them all who might burst from her own guilt, benefits from Dunne's savvy physical comedy — honestly, just watching Dara peer around a door is TV gold.
As in Derry Girls, McGee excels at crafting an ensemble cast around the leads that all have their own quirks, comedy opportunities, and varying levels of reverence for their hometown. O'Keeffe is haunted as the elusive Greta. Darragh Hand is charming as local Garda Liam, as ethical and dedicated to the job as he is handsome, not that Saoirse has noticed. Bronagh Gallagher brings formidable feminist No Country for Old Men energy to Booker, a fixer and fierce Dolly Parton fan who is not to be trifled with. Derry Girls' Saoirse-Monica Jackson is a delightfully unhinged surprise as an underground figure whose love for kawaii style hides a dark reality, babes.
Beyond these main characters, the series' supporting cast boasts gem after gem, from the core four's teen selves (Emma Canning, Emily Flaim, Chara Aitken, and Maria Laird) to James Martin as gruff petrol station owner Tommy, Starstruck's Nikesh Patel as Saoirse's long-suffering agent, Niamh Finlay as Knockdara's rudest waiter, and Kerr Logan as a creepy hotel owner unfortunately called Norman.
How to Get to Heaven From Belfast builds a bizarre noir through production design
Undeniably, the secret stars of How to Get to Heaven From Belfast are Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland themselves. Captured by director of photography Ashley Barron through soaring overhead landscape shots (a must for mystery series these days), extreme Dutch angles, and fish-eye shots, the characters and the Irish landscapes of Donegal, Cork, and Belfast (of course) are gloriously framed, an extension of each other and just as weird and wonderful.
When not optimising natural splendour, How to Get to Heaven From Belfast sees production designer Tom Conroy plunging locations into surrealist hyper-colour at every opportunity, rendering the series a bizarre noir. Supported by some whimsical get-ups by costume designer Cathy Prior and hair and makeup designer Robyn Wheeler, McGee cooks up a neon-hued setting for this dark tale. Bright pink hotel signs flicker reflected in puddles on dark and stormy nights, pub dance floors are lit with purple and red gels, late night car rides shine with strange hues.
Being a story of digging into the past, the series jumps between time periods from the '90s to '00s to now, with nostalgia the main direction for tunes here. Music supervisor Catherine Grimes continues McGee's Derry Girls perfect throwback playlist with more needle drops worthy of a burned CD. Eternal bangers from Girls Aloud, Vengaboys, Nelly, DJ Sammy, Junior Senior, Atomic Kitten, Black Eyed Peas, and B*Witched will unlock a very specific moment of adolescence for millennial viewers in particular.
How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is as much a classic mystery as it is a uniquely Lisa McGee-penned celebration of girlhood and adulthood, of lifelong friendship and repressed trauma, edited memories, and the connection to home many of us end up running from. It's hilarious, haunting, and heavenly in every way.
How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is streaming Feb. 12 on Netflix.